The fabrication of many photonic devices has been achieved through exposure of transmissive and absorbing materials to intense laser radiation in order to change the optical properties of said materials. For example, UV-induced photosensitivity of germanium doped silica glasses has been exploited in order to create permanent refractive index changes in the photosensitive Ge-doped silica cores of single mode optical fibers and waveguides as opposed to the undoped cladding. By creating a spatial intensity modulation of the UV exposure either by using a two-beam interference technique as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,950 by Glenn et al. or by using a phase mask as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,588 by Hill et al., Bragg grating structures can be produced in the photosensitive core of the waveguide.
Direct laser writing of planar waveguides into photosensitive Ge-doped glass films on silicon using a focused ultraviolet 244 nm continuous wave (CW) laser beam was first demonstrated by M. Svalgaard and M. Kristensen in “Directly UV written silica-on-silicon planar waveguides with low loss,” Electron. Lett., vol. 33, no. 10, pp. 861-863, 1997. In order to be able to induce sufficient index change with the UV light, the Ge-doped glass film often needs to be photosensitized to UV light by exposing such an optical fiber to hydrogen or deuterium gas at elevated pressures and temperatures as taught by Atkins et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,427. The process taught by Atkins et al. is often referred to as “hydrogen loading”. The fabrication of practical laser direct write waveguide devices requires the induction of large changes of refractive index Δn in the target material on the order of 3-6×10−3 as was reported by M. Svalgaard, “Direct writing of planar waveguide power splitters and directional couplers using a focused ultraviolet laser beam,” Electron. Lett., vol. 33, no. 20, pp. 1694-1695, 1997.
Recently processes that employ high-intensity laser pulses in the femtosecond pulse duration regime for creating permanent changes in the refractive indices of glasses have been explored by several groups of researchers. K. M. Davis et al. disclose a technique for inducing index change in bulk glasses with ultra-high peak power femtosecond infra-red radiation in Opt. Lett 21, 1729 (1996). The creation of waveguides in bulk glasses using this technique is taught by Miura et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,538 while the modification or trimming of existing waveguide structures is taught by Dugan et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,768,850. The physical process that appears to cause the refractive index change in the materials is due to the creation of free electrons through non-linear absorption and multi-photon ionization of bound charges, followed by avalanche ionization and localized dielectric breakdown as these free electrons are accelerated by the intense but short time duration laser field. Also, this leads to a localized melting and restructuring of the material and a concurrent increase in the index of refraction. Work performed in this field has used laser pulses that are tightly focused to near-diffraction limited spot sizes generating extremely high intensities of light, approximately 1014 W /cm2, in order to initiate non-linear absorption processes in the materials.
The femtosecond laser based direct write processes suffer from the potential problem of over exposure of the bulk glass. This over-exposure with too high an intensity can lead to an unwanted physical damage of the glass resulting in undesired attenuation of the optical signals transmitted through the laser generated waveguide.
Recently it has been demonstrated that there are two regimes of ultrafast infra-red laser induced index change in both bulk SiO2 and optical fiber that are dependent on the incident laser power. In the work by L. Sudrie, M. Franco, B. Prade, and A. Mysyrowicz, “Study of damage in fused silica induced by ultra-short IR laser pulses,” Opt. Comm., vol. 191, no. 3-6, pp. 333-339, 2001, two power thresholds of ultrafast IR induced Δn in bulk silica were identified, one for a reversible index change that could be annealed out at temperatures below the glass transition temperature of the SiO2 (900° C.). The second higher power threshold was the self-focusing threshold above which the induced index change was likely a result of multiphoton and avalanche ionization causing plasma formation. The resultant index change would not anneal out at 900° C. In fiber Bragg grating fabrication, these two regimes for ultrafast IR induced index change were also observed and denoted as Type I-IR and Type II-IR induced index change as reported in C. W. Smelser, S. J. Mihailov, and D. Grobnic, “Formation of Type I-IR and Type II-IR gratings with an ultrafast IR laser and a phase mask,” Opt. Exp., vol. 13, no. 14, pp. 5377-5386, 2005.
The state of the art writing grating structures or changing the refractive index in a photosensitive media has changed over the years. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,941,052 in the names of Viswanathan, Nirmal K. et al. filed Jun. 24, 2004 states the following:
“Special features may be built into selected lengths of optical fibers to be spliced into fiber optic networks. A fiber Bragg grating represents a light-modifying feature that may be introduced or written into an optical fiber by exposure to ultraviolet light. The process of introducing special features such as Bragg gratings into an optical fiber may include a number of steps requiring handling of relatively short lengths of optical fiber during a series of manufacturing operations. An optical fiber typically requires removal of protective coatings before changing the physical characteristics of the fiber to include a Bragg grating. After writing a Bragg grating, the fiber may be annealed and re-coated to protect the optical fiber and its imprinted waveguide from physical damage or attack by environmental contaminants.”
Viswanathan et al., further discuss the use of hydrogen loading in order to increase the sensitivity of germanosilicate glasses to UV radiation which is consistent with the state of art. The following description is found in U.S. patent application 20040120643.
“The magnitude of change in the refractive index of glass substrates, exposed to ultraviolet laser energy, depends upon the sensitivity of the glass to the ultraviolet radiation. It is known that silica glass substrates, such as optical fibers, may be treated to include chemical elements such as germanium in their structure. This produces germano-silicate glasses, which have increased sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation. Further increases in sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation have been achieved using a process known as hydrogen loading. The process of hydrogen loading involves treating glass in an environment of hydrogen at high pressures and elevated temperatures that promote hydrogen diffusion into the glass. Hydrogen-loaded germano-silicate fibers represent the current substrate of choice for manufacture of glass fiber-containing refractive index gratings resulting from exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Such gratings exhibit a marked variation in the magnitude of periodic refractive index change (Δn) along the length of a grating. The magnitude of refractive index change is known to diminish during the process of grating stabilization, involving high temperature annealing. It is believed that annealing causes some loss of hydrogen and other species that affect the magnitude of refractive index change.”
United States patent application further discusses the notion of irradiating glass by using lasers emitting pulses of energy at femtosecond pulse widths in the near infrared (NIR) region of the spectrum to produce permanent refractive index changes in various glasses.
The following passage from U.S. patent application 20040120643 illustrates the deleterious side effects of using high intensity pulsed light to create a permanent refractive index difference in glass.
“Refractive index changes in glass result from multi-photon photochemical reactions during exposure to femtosecond laser pulses. Exposure to short femtosecond energy pulses in this way yields waveguides that, unlike hydrogen-loaded glasses, retain a relatively stable change in the magnitude of refractive index variation. Although changes in refractive index remain relatively stable, visible defects accompany waveguide formation in several glasses including silica and germano-silicate glasses. The defects compromise the mechanical strength of optical fibers after fabrication of optical devices such as optical fiber waveguides. This suggests that near infrared laser pulses, operating at femtosecond pulse widths, are unsuitable for use with optical fibers, due to the occurrence of damage to the processed glass. A further disadvantage of near infrared femtosecond laser pulses is the minimum diffraction-limited spot size obtainable by focusing lasers of this type. The minimum spot sizes achievable after laser beam focusing, in this case, is approximately 2 μm-3 μm . Bragg gratings having suitable wavelength characteristics for telecommunications applications require focusing of the exposing laser beam to produce fringe periodicity of approximately 0.5 μm.”
We have found that for practical femtosecond laser direct-write fabrication of waveguide structures, high index changes need to be achieved in a reasonable amount of time in a regime where the formation of laser-induced physical damage is avoided (Type I-IR).
For Ge-doped silica glasses it was taught by Mihailov et al. in U.S. Patent Appl. 2004/0184734 incorporated herein by reference, for all purposes, that index modulations of almost the same magnitude could be induced simultaneously in the Ge-doped core and pure silica cladding region of a standard telecom fiber in order to produce a cladding mode suppressed grating response. It would therefore be difficult to preferentially induce an index change in a Ge-doped core of a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) or Ge-doped slab waveguide without inducing index change to the surrounding pure silica cladding regions.
The process of hydrogen loading is normally associated with increasing photosensitivity of Ge-doped silica waveguides to actinic radiation such as high photonic energy UV photons but not low photonic energy infrared photons which do not possess sufficient photonic energy to induce the photochemical reaction for production of hydrogen based Ge-defects that associated with the index change. In fact at low IR intensities, for example telecommunication pulses in an optical network, the hydrogen loaded Ge-doped waveguides are not more photosensitive to infrared photons (i.e. an index change is not induced).
In stark contrast to the teaching of Aitkens in U.S. Pat. No. 6,573,026, we have found and have reported in a paper by C. W. Smelser, S. J. Mihailov, and D. Grobnic, entiltled “Hydrogen loading for fiber grating writing with a femtosecond laser and a phase mask,” Opt. Lett., vol. 29, no. 18, pp. 2127-2129, 2004, incorporated herein by reference, that in fact the threshold for high intensity Type I-IR induced index change could be substantially reduced in Ge-doped fiber if in fact the fiber is hydrogen loaded even though the Ge-doped region is traditionally not photosensitive to the 800 nm irradiation wavelength of the laser.
If sufficiently high intensity is realized, that is, if there are a large number of low energy photons incident simultaneously, a multi-photon absorption process will occur that will cause a similar photochemical reaction as with a single high energy UV photon. Such a process is advantageous for ultrafast laser direct write waveguides in photosensitive films and bulk glasses as lower ultrafast IR intensities could be used to induce the Type I-IR index change thus increasing waveguide fabrication speed and performance. By having interstitial top and bottom cladding layers made of pure silica for example, waveguides could be induced in the hydrogen-loaded photosensitive slab layer without inducing index change in the cladding layers.
Smelser et al. in Opt. Lett. vol. 29, no. 18, pp. 2127-2129, 2004 have shown that surprisingly, the process of “hydrogen-loading” is advantageous in increasing the photosensitivity of Ge-doped layers to high intensity ultrafast infrared radiation.
The technique of hydrogen-flame brushing of Ge-doped optical fiber and waveguides as taught by Bilodeau et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,548 would also result in increased photosensitivity of said optical fiber and waveguides to high intensity ultrafast infrared radiation.
Traditionally ultrafast IR induced refractive index change requires regeneratively amplified femtosecond IR pulses. By reducing the threshold for an induced refractive index change, lower power less complicated and less expensive exposure sources could be utilized for the direct write inscription, namely the un-amplified femtosecond pulses from the laser oscillator. Such a pulse source operates in the MHz regime, rather than the kHz regime, which would facilitate the inscription of more continuous waveguide structures. Alternatively, a less tightly focused ultrafast IR beam from a regenerative amplifier could be used to induce a refractive index change in a specific large region of a hydrogen loaded Ge-doped layer for the fabrication of slab waveguides or the large interference ‘free-space’ regions of arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) or multimode interference (MMI) couplers through use of a contact printing mask or mask projection similar to photolithographic processes. As well a defocused ultrafast IR beam could be used for phase error corrections of AWGs. Takada and Abe in a paper entitled “Slab-waveguide irradiation of uv laser light for photosensitive phase error compensation of arrayed-waveguide gratings,” IEEE Photon. Tech. Lett., vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 813-815, 2002. incorporated herein by reference, show that a prolonged UV exposure through a contact mask placed on the slab waveguide interference region of an AWG can correct for phase errors in the AWG. A similar process using defocused ultrafast IR light could also be used
It is an objective of this invention to overcome the aforementioned limitations within the prior art systems of inducing refractive index change for direct write waveguides using femtosecond time duration laser radiation.